An aerial view of damage from Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas. PhysOrg.

Wednesday, 24 January 2018

In Hogs We Trust - Part 111.

by Larry Powell

(Warning, the words and images in this story are graphic.)

We all know that farm animals can get sick. But how many of us are aware of just how damaging animal epidemics can be - whether on the other side of the world or on our own doorstep? They can and do cause huge economic losses and harm to the health of animals and humans, alike. And, there’s ample evidence that, for generations, the model we’ve been using to raise animals in confined, crowded conditions, only magnifies the problems. So why is the Manitoba governmentprepared to risk even more of the same by massively expanding pork production in a province with an already-large industry? I hope this part of my series will move you, the reader, to ask, “How much worse must things get, before we change course?”

Losses
suffered globally due to diseases of livestock, are staggering. As the
Nairobi-based International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) note,
"Some of the most lethal bugs affecting humans originate in our
domesticated animals. Thirteen of these (formally called “zoonotics”) are
responsible for 2.4 billion cases of human illness and 2.2 million deaths per
year. As more pigs and poultry are raised in concentrated spaces, especially in
poorer countries, the risk of zoonotic disease rises.

While the vast
majority (of human casualties) are in low-and middle-income countries, the
northeastern U.S. has emerged as a ‘hotspot,’ too!” Whatever the case, the
authoritative Centers for Disease Contol in the States reminds us, we in
developed countries, cannot afford to be complacent. On its website, the CDC
proclaims, "We are living in an interconnected world where an outbreak of
infectious disease is just a plane ride away."

UPDATE: May 20, 2018:

It has recently been reported that the rare
virus called Nipah has re-emerged in southern India, killing at least 11 people
and causing more than 25 others to be hospitalized. Although global health
officials consider that, so far, to be a relatively small outbreak, they’re
worried. And while no cases have been reported in Canada, scientists with the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency have expressed similar concerns. Nipah is
on the World Health Organization’s priority list of emerging diseases that could cause a
global pandemic, alongside Zika and Ebola.

In 1999, Nipah
killed more than a hundred people in Malaysia and sickened almost 300 others.
While fruit bats had probably been the initial carriers, the victims had all
worked closely with pigs, which acted as intermediate hosts. To prevent the
spread of the disease, more than a million hogs were euthanized, inflicting
tremendous economic losses on the Malaysian economy.

Some of
the diseases referred to here, including Nipah, have been known to infect those
who take part in the Raaj, the largest annual religious pilgrimages in the
world, where animals are sometimes sacrificed.

While “zoonotics” have not been as common here as elsewhere, the same cannot be
said for diseases deadly to hogs - outbreaks which have proven - for much of
North America - to be nothing short of rampant.

Lesions
“of unprecedented severity” were inflaming the intestines, blood vessels,
kidneys and spleen of Ontario herds. In some, fully half the pigs
died. PCVAD had become “the dominant strain” infecting barns in both Ontario
and Quebec. One study
in the journal, “Veterinary Pathology” states, “In the space of
less than two decades, this virus has gone from being a provincial oddity to
one of the most economically important infectious agents in modern swine
production.”

As the
outbreak swept on to western Canada, animals were developing rasping coughs,
diarrhea, pneumonia, fluid on the lungs, then dying. Within a few years, almost
all of Canada’s pig farms had tested positive. As
Ottawa put it at the time, “It severely affected the health and
livelihood of the Canadian swine industry. Hundreds of producers faced
financial ruin and pork processors laid off hundreds of staff. By 2009, the
economic impact on the industry in North America had been estimated at more
than $500m.”

Last
spring, another disease deadly to pigs moved into Manitoba, disrupting the
industry to a degree perhaps not seen since the crisis 13 years earlier.
Ominously dubbed “Porcine Epidemic Diarrhea” (PED), it infected hogs
in scores of barns in southeastern Manitoba. Despite frantic efforts by barn
owners and workers to control the infection, it had, by summer, found its way
onto 90
farms. At this writing, 42 of those are now described as “PED-free,” once
again. But these gains have come at a price. Industry sources confirm, during
the struggle to contain the disease, it had become so rampant, and stress
levels so high among workers trying to contain it, they were developing
symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. That’s what our veterans get in combat!
There have been no new cases since October. So, is the worst behind us? Or is
the epidemic just “in remission?”

A recent
study by the University of Manitoba suggests, eradicating the disease
won’t be easy. The virus can become airborne and spread on the wind for up to
18 kilometres. It can also withstand cold weather, be spread by livestock
trucks, and survive for up to nine months in the earthen storage lagoons which
producers use to store the waste. That waste, called slurry, is often spread on
farm fields as a fertilizer. (An
American expert even says, a single tablespoon may be potent enough to
infect tens of millions of animals.)

No hard
numbers are publicly available on just how many pigs the outbreak has claimed.
But an official said, at one point during the summer, almost a million were
under surveillance.

PED causes the animals to spew watery vomit from one end and diarrhea from the other. (See above.) While some adults can survive, almost all infected piglets become severely dehydrated and die on about their fifth day.

In another part of the world, the European Union, at this writing,
was on high alert. After an absence of
decades, a deadly viral disease called African Swine Fever (ASF) “re-invaded”
three years ago. It is threatening both EU farm pigs and wild boar, who are
believed to carry the disease. Despite heroic attempts by Lithuania, an EU
country, to keep it at bay along its border with Belarus, the fever moved in.
Then, it swept westward into Poland, the Czech Republic and three Baltic
States.

Infected herds must be culled. Photo credit - Science Magazine.

-->

In Estonia, 22 thousand hogs had to be destroyed. Pork prices collapsed
and more than a third of Estonia’s hog farms went out of business. The
disease is now raising alarm in hog-producing countries like Denmark and
Germany. With pork exports there worth billions, the stakes are high. That’s
because any country where an infection is confirmed, might lose those markets.

The swelling around the kidneys and the muscle hemorrhages shown here are typical of pigs with African swine fever. Photo by Karen Apicelli USDA.

ASF was first reported in domestic pigs in eastern Africa in 1921. It is harmless to humans. But it kills up to 90% of pigs. They start to bleed inside. Blood sometimes gushes from their ears and flanks. Their lungs fill with fluids. They lose their appetite and energy, abort their young and die, suddenly, within ten days. The virus spreads through the secretions of sick animals. It can survive for long periods on workers’ clothes or hay, helping it move from farm to farm. It can travel even farther when contaminated pork is transported. Pigs or wild boar become infected if they eat the scraps.

Below is a video depicting the seriousness of ASF, produced by the European Food Authority.

In a different part of the world, “Public
Health England” (PHE), a government agency, has recently
estimated that up to 200 thousand residents of England and Wales are being
infected each year with Hepatitis E (HepE), mainly from eating undercooked
meat, including pork. HepE is often not serious, but can sometimes
cause liver failure in pregnant women and others with weakened immune systems.
There are conflicting reports on the seriousness of some 60 cases over the
summer, traced to imported pork products sold at a major London supermarket.
PHE claimed the risk to the public was small, although newspaper
accounts at the time, stated there had, indeed, been
serious illnesses. The HepE strain responsible has been on the increase in the
area since 2010.

Officials here in Manitoba have, correctly, been
informing the public that the PED virus (responsible
for the current outbreak here), “is not a human health or food safety
concern.”

But research by experts at the
College of Veterinary Medicine at Virginia Tech did note that
PED is also a coronavirus. That’s a family of pathogens, other members of
which are “known to infect humans and other animals and cause respiratory and
gastrointestinal diseases.” The three PED strains they isolated,
likely evolved from bats in China. This, they conclude, “provides further
support of the... potential for cross-species transmission.”

The lead author of that study, Dr. X.J. Meng, in an
interview with me, hotly denied any suggestion that PED might cross over into
humans.

So, while PED is not a “zoonotic,” the same
cannot be said for other coronaviruses.

One of them, “Middle East
Respiratory Syndrome” (MERS), claimed human lives in dozens of
countries in and around the Arabian Peninsula after being confirmed in 2012.
Humans can get it by drinking unpasteurized camels’ milk.

And another coronavirus, “Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), took many lives in an epidemic in
2003, including 44 Canadians. Although the literature does not reveal
any connection to hogs, much about the disease remains a mystery. These
outbreaks (MERS and SARS), add the American researchers, “create further
anxiety over the emergence of PED in the United States.”

Early in 2009,the infamous “Swine
flu” (H1N1) was first detected in Mexico. By June of
that year, the World Health Organization stopped counting cases and declared
the outbreak a “pandemic.” When it was all over, human fatalities probably
stood at about 285 thousand, mostly in Africa and southeast Asia. While
the WHO still fears the disease may pose some threats in certain regions, it
has declared it is now in a “post-pandemic period.”

Despite protests from hog producers and some
politicians over the name, “Swine Flu” is not a misnomer. While it cannot be
spread by eating pork, the virus contains five genes that normally
circulate in pigs and is now considered a human influenza virus. Hogs infected
with it were also found in three other countries, including Canada. And, yet
another virus “of swine origin” was isolated in three people in
Saskatchewan in 2010. All worked at the same large hog operation.

So, are we taking livestock diseases seriously enough?

As the CDC cautions, "The more
animals are kept in close quarters, the more likely it is that infection or
bacteria can spread among them. Concentrated animal feeding operations or large
industrial animal farms can cause a myriad of environmental and public health
problems?"

Unlike "ILOs," animals on this family farm in Manitoba get to bask in the sun,breathe fresh air and roam in spacious pastures. A PinP photo.

And who will compensate for the huge economic losses which are sure to follow? Three guesses....

-30-

June 2nd, 2018,,,AN INDUSTRY UPDATE......

PEDv update: 6 confirmed cases in Southeastern Manitoba

There are now six confirmed PED cases in Southeast Manitoba in the 2018 outbreak, including three finisher operations, two sow operations and one nursery operation. Biocontainment is in place on these premises.

Manitoba Pork and the Chief Veterinary Office strongly recommend enhanced biosecurity steps be taken on all premises and by all stakeholders in the area bounded on the West by PTH 75, North by PR 210, East by PTH 12, and South by Rd 34 N. This recommendation is meant to provide easily recognizable boundaries for all involved. Consult your veterinarian on enhanced biosecurity protocols that can be implemented on your premises.

In the 2017 outbreak, we currently have 68 premises which have reached Presumptive Negative status, 11 Transitional status sites and one Positive status site.

Larry Powell lives in Shoal Lake, where he publishes PlanetInPeril.ca Larry has served briefly as a member of the environmental monitoring group, Hog Watch Manitoba.

===========

POSTSCRIPT: I have gleaned the above information from the most reliable sources I can find - government agencies, world health authorities, scientific research studies published in peer-reviewed journals and, in some cases, industry itself. But please consider this a “sampling,” rather than a complete chronicle. l.p.

5 comments:

PinP
said...

"The incidence and range of many emerging diseases are influenced by the intensification of..livestock systems. Serious social and economic impacts can arise when diseases spread widely within human or animal populations, or when they spill over from animal reservoirs to human hosts. Most of the factors that contribute to disease emergence will continue, if not intensify. Integrating policies.. across the food chain can help reduce the spread of infectious diseases; robust detection, surveillance, monitoring, and response programs are critical." U.N. report - "Agriculture at a Crossroads" 2009

Clip-George Matheson-Manitoba Pork:"We do ship a significant numbers of pigs south and a fair bit of pork comes into Canada from U.S. sources. From Manitoba we export a significant number of weanlings, probably in the range of three and a half million per year. Live pigs from the U.S. do not enter Canada. They have their own markets in their own country. They do export, 20 percent of the pork consumed by Canadians comes from U.S. origin." Spoken like a true "Free-Marketeer." No reference or apparent awareness of the reality of diseases that can and do sweep through North America herds. These people are operating with impunity, without fear of critical scrutiny from neo-liberal governments like Manitoba's and Canada's. (To Hell with regulations - let the markets rule!)

At the same time, smallholder systems in very poor countries, with weak health services, are mostly responsible for endemic (or day-to-day) zoonoses.

We have concern that intensification in developing countries may be even more risky than intensification in rich countries, because the environment is more suitable for disease and there is, on the whole, less governance and management of livestock.

Pork producers are now worried about yet another disease that could devastate herds in the US. And they are "prepping" lawmakers there for the possibility of shelling out more public funds to counter the threat. COULD THE DISEASE COME TO CANADA? You be the judge. Below is a transcript of the pig industry's Canadian radio show, "Farmscape."

"Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank Needed As Precaution for FMD OutbreakFarmscape for June 13, 2018The President-Elect of the National Pork Producers Council says the creation of a Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank will help mitigate losses in the event of an FMD outbreak in the United States.The National Pork Producer's Council HAS BEEN LOBBYING GOVERNMENT FOR FUNDING to create a Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Bank.David Herring, the President Elect of the National Pork Producer's Council, told those on hand last week for World Pork Expo in Des Moines there's not enough vaccine available in the United States to accommodate a USDA policy change from using euthanasia to eradicate Foot and Mouth Disease in the event of an outbreak to one of using vaccination.Clip-David Herring-National Pork Producer's Council:Over the last 20 years we have gone from four or five percent exports to almost 25 or 26 percent exports.If we would get a Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak here in the United States, overnight we would lose our export markets so what we're trying to do is a preventative tool to have in our box so maybe we could regionalize the outbreak and help open those export markets quicker.Any way you cut it, if we get a Foot and Mouth outbreak in the States, it's going to be very expensive.The markets will close automatically but it could happen in many different ways.We could have a small regional outbreak and possibly mitigate the damages and help maybe keep some of the parts of the country open to exports but any given day in the United States we have anywhere from 350 to 400 thousand pigs on the road so we think it would be very hard to regionalize it so we need a volume in this vaccine bank so we can go and vaccinate and help mitigate the damages.Herring right now there wouldn't be enough vaccine available to even vaccinate the pigs in the county in which he lives so creating a vaccine bank is an important precaution.For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane."